Dragon Vanquished: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (Dragon Gladiators Book 4)

by Zara Stark

  "We head on in," Ciardha nodded.

  "Octavia first, she's the one that saw Rome in the portal, we don't want to let Ciardha go through first and end up in the nineties," Mab shivered.

  "Why do you assume it will spit us out all in the spot Octavia sees, what if it sends us all to separate places," Tefra said and we all looked at him and glared.

  "What!? You can't just assume everything is going to magically work out because you hope really, really hard," Tefra snapped.

  "Why not? Have you ever even heard of the Law of Attraction?" I asked him.

  Mab and Ciardha groaned.

  "Look, it's not an assumption that we can all go through the portal to where I want to go. it's a hypothesis, an educated guess, if we hold hands we will most likely go to the same place. I hypothesize that because Ciardha's powers work on others when he's touching them, I do the same with my cards."

  "My illusions work the same way," Mab chimed in.

  "And I'm willing to guess that if your fire doesn't burn you, you can make it so it doesn't burn someone else the same way," I continued. "Makes sense?"

  "I guess," Tefra shook his head as he crossed his arms.

  "Look, whatever happens, I'm glad I got to know you guys. The Dragons Gladiator Games may have set us up as enemies and if we hadn't gotten trapped here that may have been the only way I've known you. I'm really glad I got to know you guys over the last couple of days and learned what amazing people you four are."

  "Same," Mab said to the group. "You pack of weirdos have been driving me insane and even though we've been imprisoned together, I wouldn't change a minute."

  "Aw group hug!" Ciardha mocked us with a high pitched voice. Mab and I both punched him in the stomach, our hands passing through his abdomen.

  "Really? You guys know I'm intang’ right now," He scoffed.

  "It's the thought that counts, the thought that you need to get punched," Mab laughed.

  He ignored her and glared at me. "That's what I call it, intang’ and not ghosting."

  "Why? Ghosting sounds ways better than intang'," I argued.

  "Ghosting does sound better," Tefra pointed out. "You could've named that ability anything and you came up with intang'? Why not ghosting? or phantoming?"

  "Phantoming is a mouthful," Mab vetoed.

  "Really? and who is this Phantoming?" I laughed.

  "Shut up," She made the motion of zipping her lips.

  "I will take ghosting under consideration, I guess it sounds pretty cool," Ciardha shrugged.

  "Can we go? Why are we wasting time like this?" Lelras finally spoke up.

  "Yes, why are you guys bickering like this when impending doom and an impossible deadline hang over our heads at this very moment?" Tefra asked.

  "Oh please, you were participating in the bickering just a moment ago," Mab tapped him on his bicep playfully. After hearing what Mab had told me a few minutes ago I saw the little touches in a whole new light. Flirtation. I wondered if Tefra saw the same thing, he was pretty smart. or maybe he wouldn't. Tefra was a phoenix. He was probably used to like bird mating rituals. Flashing of feathers and what not. I choked on air, shoving down a laugh as the mental image of Tefra showing off fully fanned out peacock feathers to Mab.

  "Are you okay Octavia?" Lelras asked, pulling me from my silly thoughts.

  "Yeah just distracted by random thoughts," I looked around to find the group all staring at me. Mab was standing very close to Ciardha, their sides almost touching one another.

  "Let's get going, shall we?" Tefra asked but the inflection of his voice didn't sound like a question but a command instead.

  "So eager to leave now, Phoenix?" Ciardha taunted.

  "Only an idiot would want to stay surrounded by wendigos, grootslang and primordial gods," Tefra scoffed, walking ahead of us to the door. I noticed that wasn't quite a yes or a no, it reminded of fairy tales where the mischevious fae couldn't tell a lie so they danced around the truth.

  "If a wendigo got you with its claws, would you become infected and zombified?" I was one step behind him. I asked him, very directly, no way to dance around that question.

  "May we never find out," He sighed, massaging at his temples like I was annoying him or something. It was a gesture I was very familiar with, I often annoyed people.

  "What is the origin of my power, Tefra?" I asked him again.

  He looked back at me, his dark eyes clouded.

  "O-" Tefra began but was cut off by a terrifying roar, shaking the prison.

  "That's the same roar from our reconnaissance mission," Ciardha helpfully pointed out.

  "Let's go! I stepped in front of Tefra, grabbing his hand.

  He grabbed Mab's, she grabbed Ciardha's and Ciardha begrudgingly grabbed Lelras's hand.

  I clenched my coin hard in my hand once before putting it between my teeth. With my free hand, I threw open the gold door and gasped as the sight of the swirling light portal. It was as awe-inspiring as the first time I saw it. Once again, in the center, I saw where I left my guys.

  I pulled the group into the room until we were all surrounding the portal. I took the coin from between my teeth and held it in my hand.

  Chapter 8

  "Stop!" Tar snapped out, running in right after us. Fury flared in his glowing blue eyes. He fixed me with his angered gaze, hatred and loathing spewing forth from their depths.

  "I saved you from the Concilium and you repay me like this?! Freeing my prisoners and leading a mutiny?!" He screamed at me, shaking the stone walls.

  "Thanks for the escape but I was doing a pretty damn good job of saving myself. I appreciate the help but you refused to listen when I asked to go back to where I was," I shrugged. "Consent matters."

  "You don't know what you've done, the monsters you've freed," He yelled. "You’re a fool if you think leaving here will help you say your mates."

  "A fool in love," I sighed. “Would you have let me go if I asked you to?”

  “No,” He growled.

  “Then don’t act like you’re the victim here! I was held against my will for your gain! Please don’t act like the saint here, you collect prisoners to fuel your own power!” I yelled.

  “I hope this doesn’t come between our blossoming romance, Tar,” Mab purred at the deity. If I had a free hand I would’ve face-palmed. Instead, I groaned. Flirting, now? Get my girl a drink of water, she was thirsty.

  Tar looked at her in fury and disgust. “I will never be interested in you, dragon. Before or after this clusterfuck you started.”

  “Playing hard to get still, you don’t have to do that,” Mab playfully pouted at him. “I’ll think you’re a good boy either way.”

  I looked at the other, Lelras face was frozen into a blank, unreadable mask but Tefra and Ciardha looked amused by the situation.

  “Ugh,” Tar shook his head, his teeth gritted. “Don’t you go through that portal! I ought to toss you in the wendigo cage!”

  “See if you’re going to toss us in the wendigo cage, we really are going to decline your invitation to stay,” Tefra sighed, shaking out his hair. “I mean the accommodations were already subpar.”

  “Yeah, I’m totally giving you one star on Yelp,” I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Ooh, antagonize him some more, I like it when he’s all riled up,” Mab laughed.

  “Oh Gods,” Ciardha groaned.

  The sound of monstrous howl filled the air. It sounded close. Too close.

  “What the hell is that?!” I shouted.

  Tartarus rolled his eyes. “One of the creatures you freed! You don’t know what you’ve wrought!”

  “Well, I think that’s our cue to go!” I held the coin up in my hand. Tartarus’ eyes locked onto it like he knew exactly what it was. Interesting. Did he know what I was?

  “Don’t do this Octavia,” Tartarus commanded me. It bristled.

  “Not really my choice Tartar Sauce,” I grinned at him. “It’s up to chance.”

  I flipped the coin wi
th one hand and caught it in my palm. I opened my hand.

  “Tails. What rotten luck,” I pouted at Tartarus. “Bye Tar.”

  “Wha--” The prison warden ofGodsstarted to say when an unseen force shot him out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving him in the hallway

  “Oh shit, what did you do to him?” Mab yelled.

  “Trapped him with whatever was in the hallway,” Tefra whistled.

  “I hope he’ll be okay,” Mab’s voice was full of worry and she leaned forward a bit as if she was about to let go and run out after him. “I like pissing him off, I don’t want him to die.”

  “He threatened to toss us into a wendigo cage, I think it’s only fair to toss the jerk to whatever monster is lurking about out there,” Ciardha shrugged.

  “Are we going to stand here, talk, and hold hands all day or are we going to get out of here?” Tefra whined.

  “Again, you were involved in the conversation until a second ago,” Ciardha hissed at Tefra.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Lelras winced, looking at the glowing portal. “Will it hurt?”

  “Most likely,” Tefra nodded with a grin.

  “Oh great,” Mab said with a fake chipper voice.

  We all stared at the swirling vortex and hesitated.

  “Are we ready?” I asked the group.

  “As we’ll ever be,” Mab chuckled, the sweet sound quickly turning into a shrill worried sound.

  I stepped forward and no one followed me.

  “Come on guys, it’s now or never,” They still didn’t budge. “God, you guys so aren’t Gryffindor material.”

  “What does that mean?” Tefra asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I shook my head. “Stop being cowards and come on!”

  “I prefer cautious to cowardly,” Lelras pointed out.

  “Come on buddy, your people need you! We gotta do this Lelras!” I yelled at him, looking down the row to Mab and Ciardha.

  “In the small amount of time that I’ve known you two, I’ve learned that you two are reckless idiots. What’s the problem?” Then I turned my gaze to Tefra. “And you, I thought you didn’t care what happened to you? Not that I agree with that feeling but come on dude.”

  “Fine,” Tefra snapped. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I didn’t wait for anyone else to respond. I stared directly into the white light and pulled the group with me. The white energy rushed all around us. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, maybe a heavenly feeling of getting enveloped by light gently wrapping around me. Or maybe wind rushing all around me. Instead, the portal was pure electricity.

  The electrical current bit into my skin as the white light around us blotted out my vision. I held tight to Tefra’s hand, refusing to let go and he squeezed back, in the same amount of pain I was.

  Stupid Tefra had been right, the portal hurt a lot. It wasn't the sweet embrace or mystical rush like you see in movies and television. The portal was made of electricity, ripping a hole into time and space took a lot of power and I was feeling it now.

  The portal spat us out into the field. All of us slowly rose, clenching our pained stomachs.

  "Well, that hurt," Mab popped out first, her hair was wild from static and standing up on end.

  "Understatement of the eon," Ciardha popped up next to her, his white hair poofed up.

  "Don't be snappy at me because you got turned into a Q-tip," Mab grinned at him. I burst into laughter, that was exactly what his hair looked like. Or cotton candy without food coloring.

  "What's a Q-tip?" Lelras asked, the last onto his feet--err hooves.

  "Ear swab thingy?" I told him, I looked away and took in our surroundings. In the distance, I could see Rome, my eyes immediately locking onto the bones of the Colosseum, proud against the morning sky.

  "We made it Team Wildcard! Good job!"

  "I just wish we knew where to go now," I tapped my chin.

  "We?" Tefra finally spoke up, he had been the first back onto his feet and had quietly stood off to the side as we joked around. "The deal was to ally together until we escaped Tartarus, again both man and prison. Did you think we would change our minds and go after the Aurelius Four with you?"

  "You mean the Alexander Four, they took her surname when they put those marks on her neck," Mab pointed to the marks on my neck. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks but I felt my mate markings tingle. Were they thinking of me? Did they miss me as much as I missed them even though they were trapped in dragon form?

  "Yeah I kind of did, I mean, Lelras I know has plans on where to go but what are you guys going to do?" I asked sheepishly. "I guess it was selfish to assume that you would want to go with me when we've only really known each other for a few days."

  "We're going to take on the Concilium with you, of course," Ciardha placed a hand on my shoulder and Mab placed a hand on the other side.

  "Oh yes," Tefra chimed in. "Concilium yes, foolhardy mission to find your lovers? No"

  "Don't try and talk me out of it like Tar," I warned him.

  "We won't, I think we're going to go with Lelras, with us backing him up he can take on his cousin and will have an entire army of centaurs to fight the Concilium with us," Ciardha explained.

  "Don't be offended by this but how are centaurs going to take on the Concilium warlocks?" I asked. "They're kind of big targets in battle too, a lot of surface area to get sliced or hit."

  "Centaurs are powerful because they're magic resistant," Mab explained. "The Concilium Warlocks won't have the right kind of firepower to take on an army of centaurs."

  "I didn't want to tell you this before in case of getting your hopes up but while you and Ciardha were gone yesterday, Tar came to speak to us and mentioned some type of creature attacking at night and stealing all the gold and precious metals in Alexandria," Tefra's voice was light and delicate. Still, his words were like a slug to the chest, they knocked the wind out of me. Cobalt, it had to be Cobalt.

  "Cobalt, it has to be Cobalt," I gasped, I felt Mab squeeze my shoulder but it was hard to feel anything else when my heart was in my throat.

  "That was my thought, metal dragons are incredibly rare and what are the chances that this metal stealing creature has black scales and bright red eyes that glow in the dark?" Tefra smirked.

  Mab squished me into a hard hug, I was learning that Mab was very affectionate. I hugged her back, the crazy hybrid dragon had grown on me.

  “Are you really going to do this? Do you really think you can bring them back to themselves?” She whispered into my hair, her voice distraught and her hold unrelenting.

  “I have to,” I answered for both questions, hugging her back.

  “If it doesn’t work, if you are unsafe, find us, we’re Team Wildcard, we have your back,” Mab rubbed my back and let go, looking down at me with sad eyes. The rest of our little ragtag group stared at us. “You don’t even know where to look.”

  “Whispers reached even in the prison that a black and silver dragon has been terrorizing Alexandria,” Ciardha chimed in, his face solemn as ever. “Eating through armories and gold mines alike, devouring refined metal and ore at an alarming rate.”

  “Then I have to get to Alexandria,” I nodded my thanks at him as Mab turned to give him a dirty look. Egypt, I would be heading to Egypt. Another one of my bucket list trips that I never thought I would actually make. I wouldn’t be seeing modern Egypt but an Ancient magical version. I didn’t know what awaited me but the thought of traveling their filled me with excitement and hope. Why would Cobalt choose there? Unless our discussion of libraries was fresh in his mind, back when we had been discussing the Atrium Libertatis.

  “You’ll be so far from us, how will I know you’re safe?” Mab asked. I almost chuckled at her concerned tone, it was only months ago that she had been taunting me about having Cobalt on her team and now she was a mother hen pecking at me with her concern and love.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have smartphones so I guess
faith?” I chuckled lightly, unsurprisingly Mab didn’t laugh with me.

  “Faith I guess?” I told her as I pulled my tarot cards from my hip holster, the fit was awkward in my holster as they were skinnier, much taller cards than my old ones. “And I have these. I have feared the power of tarot cards my entire life, for the first time in my life I believe I am ready for their power.”

  Tefra came over and without preamble grabbed a strand of hair that framed my face and ran his thumb and forefinger down the strands. My eyes went to Mab, not missing the shock and hurt the flickered on her face before it clouded over in a mask of indifference. I knew it! She liked the phoenix.